JACKSON, Miss. The Republican-led Mississippi Legislature completed a last-ditch effort Thursday to revive a bill regulating the use of bathrooms, locker rooms and dormitories by transgender people in public education buildings.
Lawmakers approved the proposal in the House and Senate in the final days of their four-month session, after negotiations between the chambers broke down on Monday over an earlier proposal. Republicans said they received a flood of messages urging them to bring the bill back to life.
“This is probably, for many of our constituents and for many people in this House, probably the most important bill that we have introduced,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Dean Kirby, a Republican.
The legislation would require all public education institutions to equip their buildings with single-sex bathrooms, locker rooms and dormitories.
People would only be allowed to enter spaces that correspond to the sex assigned at birth, regardless of their appearance or any procedures they have had to affirm their gender identity. Those who violate the policy could be prosecuted, but schools, colleges and universities would be protected from any liability.
Democrats said the bill would put transgender people at risk. They also criticized Republicans for spending time on the issue as other legislative priorities remained unfinished.
“It boggles my mind that we have things we can do to improve the state of Mississippi for all people, for all people, but we are so excited about something that is national politics,” said Rep. Jeffrey Hulum III, a Democrat. “It’s not my job to criticize how people live their lives.”
Republicans said they were standing up for female families on college campuses and pointed to several Republican women, dressed in red, as they looked on from the Senate gallery.
One of those women was Anja Baker, a member of the Mississippi Federation of Republican Women from suburban Jackson in Rankin County. Baker said she works with social service providers and worries that women will be pushed out of the spaces they rely on.
“They have so many resources and they need to have their locations and resources protected for the women who need them rather than getting caught up in a game of identity politics,” Baker said.
Advocacy groups sent emails to her and other Republican women Wednesday night, urging them to appear Thursday at the Capitol. This came after an initial measure requiring same-sex spaces stalled, causing bitter back-and-forth among key lawmakers.
Just before the Monday night deadline, the House offered a plan that would allow people to file lawsuits seeking monetary damages if someone used a bathroom not assigned to their gender, said Senate Judiciary Committee A Chairman Brice Wiggins, a Republican. Wiggins said that made it an unacceptable “trial lawyer bill.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Joey Hood, also a Republican, said the Senate forced the House to accept a weaker proposal. The bill would allow people to sue, but they would not be able to claim compensatory damages in any lawsuit. As a result, Hood and other House members said the bill they ultimately passed likely wouldn’t be able to stop people from entering spaces that don’t align with their sex assigned at birth.
Hood said he expects the Legislature to introduce legislation in 2025 with stronger penalties.
Another proposal failed this year, which would have denied legal recognition to transgender people by writing into law that “there are only two sexes and each individual is either male or female.”
In 2021, Republican Governor Tate Reeves signed legislation to ban transgender athletes from competing on girls’ or women’s sports teams. Last year, he signed a bill to ban gender-affirming hormones or surgeries for those under 18.
The Mississippi proposals were among several bills being considered in state legislatures across the country as Republicans try to restrict transgender people’s access to gender-affirming care, bathrooms and sports, among other things.
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Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to cover undercovered issues. Follow him at @mikergoldberg.
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